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A move designed to eliminate blowouts and put more kids back into house league instead of competitive hockey has some decades-old GTHL clubs fearing for their survival.

With about three-quarters of the regular season completed, 20 teams out of 532 have not won a single game, 22 have managed to win once and 14 have only two victories, according to standings posted Sunday.

Part of the reason for the competitive imbalance, said Oakman, is that the league has simply expanded too quickly. Four years ago, there were 512 teams. By the end of last season, there were 541. While the number of competitive teams has gone up, house league enrollment numbers have gone down.

To help eliminate the disparity, in June the GTHL announced it was cracking down for the 2015-16 season. If a team doesn’t earn a single point in the standings, the league’s Category Committee — which has power to approve a team’s existence — is “very unlikely” to give it the thumbs-up for the next season, committee chair Ken Smith wrote in the report he gave to the general managers at the league’s annual general meeting

Also, Smith wrote, if a club doesn’t have a team in a particular age group one season it’s now “extremely unlikely” they’ll be given permission to operate one in the next age group up the following season. The rationale, wrote Smith, is that a competitive team can’t be created from scratch in one season.

“It is a safety issue, too,” Smith told the Star. “Particularly at the older age groups, with the less skilled players playing against the more skilled players. It is no fun losing, and hockey is supposed to be fun.”

John Gardner has been president of the GTHL for more than 35 years and says the disparity in teams’ records is “unacceptable.”

“It is not the norm for 20 teams to have not won a game after three-quarters of the regular season has been played,” he says. “That coupled with the fact that another 22 teams have managed to win just one game and 14 more teams have just a couple of victories to their credit is unacceptable.

“It is not good for hockey and it is not right for the teams who are playing,” he said. “This is what we are trying to fix with Ken Smith’s plan.”

Merging is one solution, and Oakman points to successes. Three house leagues — Bert Robinson, Grand Ravine and Amesbury — merged recently to form one strong house league.

Those warnings frighten people at some long-standing clubs, which say they already face a perilous existence because of rising costs and dwindling enrolment.

Lloyd Stockley is a 40-year veteran of running the Mississauga Jets’ Double-A teams.

“I believe the league is trying to get rid of the older clubs,” said Stockley, who said decisions are being made by a GTHL board which has “no real hockey people on it.”

Scarborough Young Bruins president Carmen Cummings has been with the Bruins (formerly Dorset Park) for 32 years of the club’s 60-year existence.

“Categorization will shut down organizations like ourselves. If I don’t have an atom (10-year-old) team this year and am not awarded a minor peewee (11-year-olds) next year, (extinction) could happen over the next few years,” said Cummings.

Already, some teams are disappearing on their own because of lack of players or money. This past spring, the league approved a total of 592 teams for the current season, but there are now just 532, because clubs withdrew 60 teams on their own.

“This is the first time that I have had to withdraw three teams,” said Cummings.

Cummings has spent almost $50,000 of her own money during the past three decades so kids could play. She was on the cusp of pulling yet another midget team of 16 and 17 year olds but has kept it afloat saying teens belong on the ice not on the street corners. She is discouraged and is thinking of leaving the sport at the end of the season.

“I have proven over the years that I run a good organization but look where we are now,” she said.

Cummings is not alone.

Other examples: The York Toros club, once a powerhouse, is down to three teams. The Etobicoke Canucks — a 60-year-old club — boasted 15 teams in the 1990s but is now down to six. Hillcrest, which has 800 members, including a house league, girls and adult divisions as well as competitive boys teams, was turned down on two requested entries and folded five more teams, the most in their 41-year history. The Toronto Colts withdrew three teams.

“Costs are escalating and family incomes are down,” said Toronto Colts general manager Don Marchione, who is down to four teams. “We are struggling. There aren’t as many players. It’s a tough situation.”

The league, for its part, denies there’s any hidden agenda to get rid of older clubs.

“Anytime there is change, people are concerned,” Oakman said. “We cannot expect to do the same things the same way and expect a different outcome. We want kids playing hockey at the level they are capable of playing.”

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